Who's The Beatdown?

Mike Flores

1/01/99

Editor's Note: A long time ago, the first Magic website was The Dojo - a site that is still legendary for publishing some of the most fundamental principles of Magic. Almost all strategical theory can be traced back to the Dojo's loyal writers, and any serious Magic player owes these old vets a debt of gratitude.

Unfortunately, thanks to financial troubles, The Dojo went out of business in 2000. In a last-ditch effort to save the four years of wisdom that had been collected there at the time, the editor asked the community to archive the articles for future reference. The best of the Dojo articles are reprinted here because they're still vital to Magic today... StarCityGames.com merely reprints them, adding links to clarify older cards that new players probably won't have seen so that they can understand some of the strategy. Many of the Dojo's writers are still active in Magic and write for other sites; give them a shout-out for helping the community grow.

Who's The Beatdown?

The most common (yet subtle, yet disastrous) mistake I see in tournament Magic is the misassignment of who is the beatdown deck and who is the control deck in a similar deck vs. similar deck matchup. The player who misassigns himself is inevitably the loser.

You see, in similar deck vs. similar deck matchups, unless the decks are really symmetrical (i.e. the true Mirror match), one deck has to play the role of beatdown, and the other deck has to play the role of control. This can be a very serious dilemma, if, say, both are playing aggressive decks.

Let me give you an example: At a 1.x PTQ in Washington D. C., my teammate Al Tran was playing for a top 8 slot vs. Sligh. Al was playing Lan D. Ho's White weenie/Jank deck, normally an aggressive deck... But not vs. Sligh.

The match was split 1-1, and the third game was going to determine who made top 8.

His opponent played another Pup. Al didn't Plow either, waiting on Scroll mana or a Lightning Bolt.

On his own second turn, Al played another land and a Cursed Scroll, so he only had one land up.

On his opponent's third turn, you guessed it, another Mountain came down, followed by Ball Lightning. Al was forced to Plow the Ball. He gained control over the next few turns, but ended up dying to Bolts.

What was the problem here? Al was a beatdown deck, and he wanted to deal damage to his opponent via the Jackal Pups. However, in this particular matchup, he had to play the control deck. You see, Sligh is just much faster than Jank, so Jank's way to win has to be stifling Sligh's early speed with removal, and then locking down the midgame with Cursed Scrolls. Because Sligh also has Cursed Scrolls, as well as more Bolts than Jank, the only way that Jank can win is to make sure it has a decent life total as it plays its own threat cards.

Though it ostensibly hurts the initial race to give the Sligh player four additional life from the Jackal Pups, you can see from this example that Al had to give him six more life from the Ball Lightning... And still took at least eight from the Pups before he could control them. It would have profited Al much more to Plow the Pups, Passage the Ball, and enter the midgame with twenty life as he started to threaten with his own Paladins, Priests, etc.

The same comparison can be made when two control-based decks slug it out. At the same PTQ, I was playing High Tide against what is normally a dangerous matchup for me, CounterSliver. My opponent was running the usual array of Slivers, Worship, and permission, as well as Cursed Scroll. He made the mistake of thinking he was the control deck.

It doesn't matter... He thought he was the control deck in this matchup when clearly I was the control deck. I had a comparable or greater amount of permission, but where he had Slivers, I had card drawing and deck manipulation; where he had dual lands, I had Thawing Glaciers. My Thaws were going to insure that I never missed a land drop. I had already housed a couple of his Brainstorms with Disrupt. This means that I was going to win the long game every single time.

His job, therefore, was to kill me before I killed him. The normal formula is to play some decent-sized Slivers (two power or more) attacking every turn and leaving mana open to try to counter whatever the opposing blue deck does that might be threatening (you know, a Wrath of God, an Engineered Plague, or in this case the High Tide finishing combo). First of all, he probably should have tried to threaten me more aggressively: only one Crystalline gives me a lot of turns of Thawing and card-drawing. Secondly, tapping out is the death knell: I didn't even have to waste a Turnabout on him.

In similar deck vs. similar deck matchups, there are a couple of things that you want to look at to figure out what role to play:

1. Who has more damage? Usually he has to be the beatdown deck.

2. Who has more removal? Usually he has to be the control deck.

3. Who has more permission and card drawing? Almost always he has to be the control deck.

If you are the beatdown deck, you have to kill your opponent faster than he can kill you. If you are the control deck, you have to weather the early beatdown and get into a position where you can gain card advantage.

For an example of correctly determining who is the beatdown deck and who is the control deck, look at the Sligh vs. Sligh match between Price and Pacifico at the top 8 of the 1998 U.S. Nationals. Although on the surface, the two players seem to be playing very similar decks, there are major design differences:

While Dave's deck could definitely get a quick start, in this matchup, his deck was the control deck, set up for the long game. In one duel, Dave just played land and Scrolls and did very little else. He started by removing Pacifico's creatures with blocks or Bolts, and then Scroll-locked him, gained a little card advantage, and finished the game.

Had Dave tried to race Pacifico, he might not have won. When two players are just blindly throwing their creatures into one another, the one with more damage-oriented cards is going to win the race (but I figure we expect good Sligh play from the King of Red).

Finally, think about the Suicide Black vs. Sligh matchup. These are both very fast beatdown decks. Sligh invariably wins.

Which deck has more damage? Suicide Black. It runs many high power-to-cost creatures, like Carnophage, Sarcomancy, and sometimes Flesh Reaver. Sometimes it has stuff like Hatred. It damages even itself.

Which deck has more removal? Sligh. If Suicide Black even runs Cursed Scrolls, the Sligh deck can invariably match them. Moreover, the Sligh deck has not just weenies, but Bolts.

Though Sligh is very fast (goldfish around turn 4), Suicide Black can goldfish on turn 2 or 3 depending on the version and the Ritual draw. Clearly, the Suicide Black deck has to be the beatdown deck and the Sligh deck has to be the control deck. However, Suicide Black can't afford to be the beatdown deck. It can't lay many of its clocks, especially Sarcomancy or Flesh Reaver, because the Sligh deck has so many bolts. It can almost never cast a Hatred, for fear of auto-loss to an Incinerate. So if it can't really beat down, the Suicide Black deck has to try to be the control deck.

Anyone who has ever witnessed this matchup (at least when the Sligh deck gets a decent draw) knows how well control-oriented Suicide Black turns out.

Misassignment of Role = Game Loss.

After sideboarding, the Suicide Black deck has traditionally done much better. By taking out a lot of its"damage myself" cards for creature removal and life gaining, it can play the control role more adequately, and has a much improved (if not great) chance of winning.